Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
Today, I have a special guest on Jorie Loves A Story – an author who was inspired by Welsh Fairy Tales & Legends has created a truly original story-line where part of the plot is cross-relating to the Welsh tales themselves where readers can find further information regarding the key characters within this debut Young Adult Historical novel which blessedly is a genre-bender – meaning, it’s part Historical Romance, equally fantastical with the Welsh legends and due to how this involves quite a bit of adventure it’s also securely hugged inside traditional Historical Fiction overtures of exploration because this story originates out of a young girl who emigrated to a new country far, far away from her birth country.
The girl in question is the author herself, who re-created a story worthy of her own memories but in a fictional era & century with a character who could tell more about her experience than if she were to write an autobiography. Some of this she reveals in our conversation below – as you will get to follow her inspiration for creating the basis of the series itself whilst seeing how this series will shift forward after she pens the second & third installment.
What is interesting is how she layered it dimensionally – of how the book moves in and out of the real world and into a ‘elsewhere’ place which has a strong connection & realism of it’s own. I love seeking out new authors who are choosing to write wholly original story-lines where genre is blurred & where they bend the will of their pens to the strength of their imaginative eyes! You’ve seen me highlight previous stories which fit within this sphere of thought previously – from ‘Kinship of Clover‘ to ‘To Live Forever‘ and even, the novel by Ms Bastian fits within this realm of focus, too. Of course, so does ‘The Golem & the Jinni‘ of which I am happily awaiting the sequel to publish within the year.
Therefore, if you love reading these kinds of stories yourself, I implore you to grab your favourite cuppa and settle into this riveting conversation!
The Tides Between
She fancied herself part of a timeless chain without beginning or end, linked only by the silver strong words of its tellers.
In the year 1841, on the eve of her departure from London, Bridie’s mother demands she forget her dead father and prepare for a sensible, adult life in Port Phillip. Desperate to save her childhood, fifteen-year-old Bridie is determined to smuggle a notebook filled with her father’s fairytales to the far side of the world.
When Rhys Bevan, a soft-voiced young storyteller and fellow traveller realises Bridie is hiding something, a magical friendship is born. But Rhys has his own secrets and the words written in Bridie’s notebook carry a dark double meaning.
As they inch towards their destination, Rhys’s past returns to haunt him. Bridie grapples with the implications of her dad’s final message. The pair take refuge in fairytales, little expecting the trouble it will cause.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781925652222
on 20th October, 2017
As you are an immigrant yourself, what made your move to Australia as memorable as it was for your five-year-old self to understand how this would change your life?
Corbett responds: I left the UK at the age of five. I only recall snippets of the departure – my aunt crying, mum being violently air-sick, dad eating all her airline meals rather than let them ‘go to waste,’ the migrant friends my parents naturally gravitated towards in Australia.
Over the years, it came to be represented by breathless three-minute phone calls, birthdays and Christmases without family, an awareness that I had no personal recollection of the people I was supposed to call my own, reading British books – about badgers, and squirrels, and Robins, about rock buns and treacle tarts, and lemonade, and camping on lonely moors and tiptoeing through whispering woods and exploring castles, and Cornish coastlines, and visiting Sadler’s Wells, and watching pantomimes at Christmas. I returned to the UK only once during my childhood.
It was like stepping into the ‘real world’ that I had read about in all those books. I didn’t return again until I was in my forties. As the plane began its descent into Heathrow, I pressed my face to the glass and watched rows and rows of little brown houses with card table lawns come into view. When the airplane wheels hit the runway, I began to cry. Not silently, in loud, painful chest-wrenching sobs. I thought: If I die now it doesn’t matter, I’m home. Read More
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